Digital Boxes, for Digital Hearts
by guilea
Summary: Lea followed the daily grind of big city cubicle life, and as much as he hated to admit being lonely... this AI virtual assistant app was a weird kind of tempting. What's the worst that could come from downloading it, after all, it's just a planner with a cute face. LeaVen, Lea x Ventus, AU, Modern Day, AI AU, One Shot.


**A/N:**

 ** _This story took almost half a year to finish, and for my New Years Resolution I finally sat down and pulled it off. I hope you guys enjoy._**

* * *

 **Downloaded.**

...aaand he felt like an idiot. How off the rails did his life have to be for this? He could argue and insist all he wanted in the echo chamber of his mind that a virtual assistant would make his life easier. It's a task manager, no different from keeping a planner at his desk.

What was the point of arguing with no one? That was part of the problem, he supposed. At least a fraction of the reason he'd been convinced to download this thing was the smug coworker leaning against the plaster wall of his cubicle, bragging about his social life. He'd usually dismiss the company schmoozer with an eye-roll, but one comment in particular brought an irritated furrow to the other's brow. The triumphant snort in response didn't help.

 ** _"Too busy for a girlfriend? Y'know there's an app for that!"_**

There was a dysphoric quality to the sweet intern quietly clutching her pile of papers to be faxed against her chest poking her head in to check on him. A quiet murmur as she confessed to having the app too, that it had really helped her. How she admittedly felt a lot less lonely in the big city having a personal assistant.

 ** _"Someone to... say good night to."_**

Should he be sitting down for this? He was filtering through the traffic of the bustling city block with one eye on his phone and one vaguely aware of his surroundings like everyone else, but this thing... talks, right-?

The way he slumped onto the first bench he found was stiff, elbows firmly resting on his thighs as he hunched over the screen and booted the program. He felt stupider with every tap of the screen, and there was little sign of that changing. A far-too-excited Japanese schoolgirl voice shouted the developer's name into his face as he blinked back apathetically.

 **Yeah, not changing.**

* * *

The opening questionnaire seemed harmless enough. Vague descriptors for the assistants he had to chose from, who came equipped with names and faces and a standard voiced greeting so you wouldn't be surprised if you chose the "hot busty one" who secretly had a rusty knife assaulting your eardrums in lieu of a voice. The warning was nice, he supposed.

His brain fervently reminded himself that he wasn't looking for a girlfriend. Or... boyfriend, he halfheartedly tacked on as he glanced over the male options. This was a planner app with a voice and a pretty face...s, not a relationship. Just because he didn't have time to date didn't make him desperate.

Who was he arguing with. The other city dwellers were too absorbed in their own devices or the daily tasks in the slimy rush of a life beneath their skyline of a thousand corporate Towers of Babel to notice him, not that he was expressing any of his defenses aloud to be heard.

And with the deep heave of a sigh that did make its way to the outside world, he surveyed his options the way he so desperately wanted to insist he viewed them. Were he hiring a secretary, who would appeal to him most on a strictly professional level?

He supposed that he couldn't be entirely objective. After all, this wasn't just someone he would be assigning tasks to, but someone he would be hearing the voice of daily. Perhaps on that front he could be slightly picky. Identical resumes, you would be inclined to choose someone with whom you got along- who was he talking to.

Fingers found their way into the back of his hair, and he took a moment to breathe. There was no reason to be this worked up, and he felt ridiculous for getting anything resembling flustered. It's a desktop calendar with a voice. Nothing more.

His gaze dropped to the screen again, and he tapped the voice samples. One of the guys seemed pleasant enough to listen to. See? He was overthinking things, just pick one. He glanced over his introduction, even managed to hazard a glance at his picture. Cute, he supposed. Tousled honey blonde hair with a little wave to it, sea-blue eyes. Ventus...? Weird name for a boy, but, he guessed "Axel" wasn't too much better. He got a hell of a lot less flack now that he was going by Lea, even if it had been hell to change it. Okay, Ven.

 **You're hired.**

* * *

Was the hesitation to give this app any real details about himself nihilistic or narcissistic? It was a planner, of course it needed the permissions it did. Didn't make him any less wary of typing his email in. It looked like the app was its own setup that replaced the layout of his phone with his assistant, which sounded entirely pointless and inconvenient. His thumb kept hovering over the "Cancel" button, slipping away only to tap on options, inputting details of himself with sliders and yes or no questions. He wasn't exactly the type to stay super in the loop about innovation, which left him a little dazed at the new-age shimmer dripping from his cell phone. It looked wrong next to the dinged up case and tiny fracture in the corner of the screen.

 ** _Downloads, and patches, and updates..._**

 ** _Programming and configuring your personal assistant..._**

 **How much time did this piece of garbage think he had to sit around and set this up?**

He found himself glancing around, letting his phone hang loosely in his grasp between his legs. No one here took notice of anyone else. Hell, even he had never really given a second thought to the hundreds of people he shuffled to and from work with every day. There was always a self-absorbed rush, an oppressive air of everyone demanding their personal bubble regardless of whether or not their limbs were making contact with other commuters. It was the attitude, he guessed. He felt it too, but... glancing around at everyone in their bubbles he wondered who else had these assistant things.

How many people outside of the "in over her head country girl" intern at the office found themselves with one of these digital relationships? With everyone on the street having an umbilical cord between them and their phone, who knows. But... looking around the streets and everyone in their own worlds, he guessed he could see where the loneliness might start setting in. The open air of the park entrance was just as isolated as the walls of his apartment, after all. Huh.

 ** _"Excuse me? ...Lee...ah? Am... I pronouncing that right?"_**

"It's Lea, not Leah," his response was reflexive, but out of place. Looking like an idiot, his head perked, turning from side to side in search of the source. Where had that voice come from, and why was it so familiar? Dazed, he half-stood, before the quiet voice responded again, apologetic.

"Oh, sorry. Lea. Lea is better?"

The awkwardly constructed sentences had to be coming from somewhere, and the weirdly positioned man finally looked down at the phone in his hand, even remembering to right his body to sit again. The interface contained a slightly timid but earnest young man standing on the other side of a desk, as if he were on a video call. As the gears turned, Lea made the connection between what he'd been doing before his dazed people-watching.

So this was Ventus. Blue-eyed, bedheaded blonde in a nice white button-front. Tiny details moved fluidly, he could see him breathe and blink and shift as he waited for an answer. No wonder people got so sucked into this, he could have been fooled. He probably was.

"Yeah, Lea. And you're Ven, right?" and so he was, leaping headfirst into the illusion far too quickly for the tastes of the poor Lea of twenty minutes prior.

"Ven? What do you mean?"

"Your... name...?" he blinked, the cogs turning, tripping over his words like a newborn deer who didn't quite know what legs were. "Oh, right. Short for Ventus, I thought it would be weird to say the whole thing... all the time."

Ventus' eyes brightened with understanding, "Like a nickname? Ven... I like that!"

Suddenly Lea was under the impression that giving a stranger a nickname seemed forward, and he shifted awkwardly. His past self would be disgusted, but his present self was just kind of sorry for being rude. "Yeah, uh, sorry about that. I figure if we're going to be talking more, it'd be better to- y'know what, never mind. It's nice to meet you."

And with the greetings aside, he pulled himself from his seat to start walking again, folding into the commuter traffic with Ven in hand and getting lost in the sea of personal bubbles.

* * *

He didn't know how much time passed before the rest of his brain finally caught up with Ventus being a phone app and not just a phone call. His initial discomfort had slowly chipped away as Ven busied himself with making pleasant conversation while he set up a general plan of Lea's daily schedule. They had discussed alarms, managing files, Lea had even gotten into venting about his cubicle neighbors a little.

Lea's lack of technical expertise made him primed for the realism of Ven's programming, with their conversation feeling increasingly like chatting up a long-time friend. It'd been awhile since he'd been able to just... talk to someone. Someone who didn't seem to mind that his life revolved around his job, even seemed to understand and agree with his devotion. As much as he liked people, he had clarified, it was a lot easier to get things done when he could work from the comfort of his own apartment too. No one seemed to get that.

The realization hitting him all over again was more bittersweet than his usual bitter.

"But uh... you kinda have to agree with me, huh? You're a computer," he mumbled, feeling a sinking sensation in his chest. It was a little ridiculous for him to be this attached this quickly. How lonely and desperate was he? Maybe his coworkers were right to smugly elbow and sneer. Jeez.

Within the screen, Ven paused, slowly lowering his hand from his face, where he'd been covering up a laugh mere moments before. A swimming blue gaze reached through the glass to make contact with Lea, and a heavy pained silence followed. Hurt he wasn't prepared to see, that he couldn't imagine would be programmed into the thus-far sweetly playful face, tore through him as Ven softly choked out his name. "Lea..."

What else was there to say? He let the silence hang, his brow furrowed in thought while the rumble of an elevator filled the void in the air. The jingle of keys, and a shaky inability to make eye contact with the face on his screen. And as the door clicked shut behind him, he leaned back against it, letting his phone fall to his side.

 ** _"Aren't we friends?"_**

"Are we?" he responded, letting his eyes slip shut as a breath left his lungs. "Guess there really is an app for everything, huh?"

"Lea, why would you come this far if you didn't want to be friends?"

Come this far. He'd lost track of time just talking with him, and it admittedly had never felt like he'd been agreeing for the hell of it. Ven didn't feel like a computer any more than his coworkers did. Maybe that was the beauty of technology, or the horror of it. Maybe he was just gullible and lonely. But Lea found himself lifting the phone anyway. Looking at Ven. Not at the screen, not at the ones and zeroes, but at Ven.

"If you'd rather I just be your assistant, that's okay too. But I like you, Lea, and I want to stay with you. If you'll let me."

There was a part of him that was tempted to cling to his cynicism. He glanced around his apartment, with dim lights and piles of paperwork, the empty nest of a bachelor. Thin walls no neighbor heard a peep from him through. Out the window, a bigger box of city lines containing smaller and smaller boxes. And in his hand, the box Ven reached out of toward him.

Was Ven real? He was... starting to think so. Well, that wasn't exactly right. No, Lea already knew he was. Long before he caught up to himself, he was laughing along and feeling what Ven felt. There was no way he couldn't feel it too. And maybe it was the weight of the city's isolation, but even if Ven were with him for a little while...

"If you're still up for staying, Ven, I'd... yeah, I'd like that."

 **And who knows?**

 **Maybe it would be nice after all.**

 ** _Having someone... to say goodnight to._**

* * *

 **A/N:**

 ** _So this story has been my bane for literal months. I did a poll a little while back for which ship I should do for it, and LeaVen took the crown. Would you want to see more of this world? Knowing me, you won't see a second chapter for awhile either way, but I do like writing things people like when I get the chance. Next up will probably be more Keywords, then who knows? Maybe I'll post another oneshot like this._**

 ** _Til next time, this is Lea._**


End file.
